Montagnac’s ill-fated detachment took refuge, under the orders of its captain, de Géreaux, and there withstood the fierce and reiterated attacks of a host of Arabs and Kabyles. Abd-el-Kader himself approached the little fortress, and was wounded in the cheek by a French bullet. He offered quarter on surrender: it was refused. Thrice he summoned the handful of beleaguered warriors, who spurned his proposals, and would not trust themselves to the word of an Arab. Then the combat recommenced and lasted till night, whose arrival found the French still in possession of their post. At daybreak, hostilities were resumed, and continued till ten o’clock in the forenoon, when Abd-el-Kader took his departure, and the Arabs, whose loss was very heavy, converted the siege into a blockade. Night returned, and Captain de Géreaux, who was on the watch, saw an Arab creeping stealthily towards the Marabout. He awoke Dr Rosagutti, the interpreter; they called to the Arab, who came to them; they gave him all the money they had about them, and a letter to take to the camp of Lalla Maghrnia. The Arab was faithful; he delivered the letter; but none knew the signature of Captain de Géreaux; a stratagem was suspected, and no relief was sent. Hope of succour, however, buoyed up the spirits of the besieged of Sidi-Ibrahim, and they waited another day, without bread or water, almost without ammunition, their gaze fixed in the direction of Lalla Maghrnia. But the next morning at six o’clock, despairing of relief, they resolved to sally forth and cut their way to Djema-r’Azaouat. There were four leagues to get over, and thousands of Arabs were echeloned along the route. With desperate courage, the fifty-five or sixty Frenchmen repulsed numerous attacks, forming square when hard pressed, receiving many wounds, marking their track with corpses, but still, by their steadiness and deadly fire, keeping the undisciplined Arabs at bay. Some five-and-twenty succeeded in arriving within half a league of Djema-r’Azaouat, but then their ammunition was expended; the Arabs pressed upon them, and a volley at twenty paces stretched half their number, including the brave de Géreaux, lifeless in the dust. The remainder dispersed, and sought concealment and safety amongst the copsewood and bushes. Three of them reached the lines of Djema-r’Azaouat, told the sad tale, and died, unwounded, of mere exhaustion. A sortie was made, and five or six men, who had escaped the Kabyle sabres, were brought in. Eight men were all that survived of the gallant eighth battalion of the Chasseurs of Orleans. The disaster, however, was signally revenged. The Arabs who had brought it about, by the false message sent to Colonel Montagnac—the tribe of the Beni-Snanen—were cooped up by General Cavaignac on a narrow projection of the coast, and driven into the sea or put to the sword, to the number of four or five thousand. “The furious soldiers gave no quarter,” adds M.